STriDER stands for Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot, but he’s got me excited too. His innovative three-legged gait is really fascinating to watch.

Spearheaded by Dennis Hong at Virginia Tech’s RoMeLa, STriDER is a three legged robot that uses an amazingly acrobatic gait to get get around.

Standing on two legs, STriDER flips its body 180 degrees, swinging the third leg under itself and thereby takes a step. It’s truly awesome to watch. The first below is a narrated video about the project and an explanation of how STriDER gets around (4min). The second is a short clip showing a 3D simulation plus a short clip of the current mechanical version.

“STriDER’s gait is closer to that of a human walking than most bipedal humanoid robots you see today,” explains Dennis Hong at Virginia Tech, US, who leads the project. “This is how we humans walk, we do not actively control our knees, we just let them swing.”

So said Hong in an interview with New Scientist; and I believe he’s quite right in that most robots don’t use this technique. The only one I can think of at the moment is Runbot.

According to Hong, the robot’s designed to deploy sensors in hard-to-get places; and obviously not for carrying loads (unless that load is your Coktail shaker, would be great for parties).

The first prototype was 1.8 meters tall (!), but the latest version is only about 0.9 meters. You can catch a glimpse of the giant prototype in the first video above.

Links and References

• Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa)
• via New Scientist
• The STriDER site (at the time this is written it contains nothing but a picture)